WTO Photo Quiz :: Answer 4

The BW photo was taken during the 1999 event by Kevin Sharp.
The color photo is a film still from Battle in Seattle, Redwood Palms Pictures.

"The police were anonymous. Their masks hid their humanity. Most wore no badge or number, or any way to identify them later. There was a sense of impunity—they would not later be held accountable for their actions, and they seemed to know it." —Sarah van Gelder, YES! Executive Editor

"There was an amazing array of nightsticks on display. One of the local papers ran an article a day or two before the WTO convened about a guy in North Seattle who was making beautiful, hand-made batons, and selling them as fast as he could make them as the police geared up for the WTO.At the end of the big march, I was by the Paramount Theater, which was surrounded by cops who were surrounded by demonstrators. There were, rumor had it, WTO delegates inside the Paramount, and they were trying to get out. There were limos in a fenced-in parking lot on the east side of the theater. I was on the sidewalk, which was divided by a line of plastic tape. A group of police officers were on the other side, just a couple of feet away. One young guy was carrying a long baton that looked like the ones pictured in the news article. He was staring at me, without moving.I said, "Is that one of those custom batons I read about in the paper?" He shifted on his feet, made a move as if to swing the baton at me, then stopped and went back into his ready position.He smiled."—Doug Pibel, YES! Managing Editor

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Kevin Sharp lives in the Pacific Northwest, and is currently shooting portrait, wedding, architectural, and documentary photography.